We had spent another fifteen minutes or so discussing what our course of action would be over the week before Doctor Mofuni's behaviour began to rapidly depreciate.

It wasn't until he began enthusiastically talking of studying me, along with absentmindedly reaching for a pair of scissors, did I and Aaron realised that it was time to call it a night and put Doctor Mofuni to bed―with a helpful dosage of mild sedation that Aaron had fetched. I believed I understood now why Ben had little care for Mofuni; there was no doubt now that he may have attempted to assault his kin in the name of science like he was moments away from doing to me. Aaron then began to set the now sleeping mad doctor to bed, gently tucking him with his sheets and insisted that we return to the surface for some dinner.

He led me to the mess hall, which was about a block away from Mofuni's garage. It was an open space with an abundance of seats and tables, as well as people as appropriate given the time of day. I naturally became the centre of attention once I entered, soaking in all the gawks and stares of the humans who saw me for the first time. I was quickly learning to not pay their confused and disbelieving minds any mind, as they were much more curious about me than threatened, just like how Aaron promised.

It was a pity that Ben had not come to join us for supper after travelling the whole day together, but I was equally happy to know that he was rekindling with the rest of his fellow vortigaunts who were here. I had hoped to meet them all the following day if they would be willing. While the portions of the food given to us were minimal for sound reasons, I found it delectable and satisfying enough and found myself longing for some sleep thereafter.

Before I was shown to a bed, I had the honour of meeting with Red Bay's mayor (insofar as it could have one), a middle-aged human woman named Sabrine Grace. She had dark brown skin and long curly black hair tied together by a simple leather hairband on the back of her head. She wore a blue denim coat and pants like many of the other humans, though she had a roughly stitched patch by her collar, baring the ubiquitous yellow lambda sign, signifying a form of authority.

She had been brought to meet us by Robert Bushnell to show me to a room to stay in, which was when I also found out that Rob was also Sabrine's assistant. Rob didn't stay for too long either, for he ran off to finish some errands he had been doing for another superior he had not named. It took me little time to deduce that young Rob Bushnell appeared to be the errand boy for a lot of folks here, though whether or not he resented that I could not thoroughly detect before he ran off.

Moments after, I was led by Sabrine to one of the housing quarters on the other end of town, though the building in question was visible from where we were from across the water. A few street lights had turned on overhead as we walked along the pier together, though her jaded eyes had been glued to her clipboard for the majority of our trek to our destination.

"I'm telling you, those generators the doc has made are starting to lose some juice," she noted, squinting her eyes as she tried to review notes in faint darkness. "These lights are a few decibels dimmer than they were last night. If we run out of power before the doc can come up with another hair-brained idea to keep the lights on, we're gonna have a real nightmare on our hands. I'm talking about the men at the arcade, Honey; they'll tear the whole place down if they don't have their precious burger time machine ready and working."

The envisioned scenario was enough to make her take a long and hefty inhale of her lit cigarette, which was what she did when she wasn't looking at her clipboard. It was clear that managing this prominent town of escapees was a major source of stress to her, and I couldn't help but sympathise immensely. Even still, I found her company refreshing given her total lack of awe in me.

"I'm quite surprised, Sabrine," I said, hoping to distract her from her woes for a thieving moment. "You don't appear to mind me much at all. I would've assumed that my appearance would have at least stifled you as it consistently has with the other humans."

Sabrine exhaled another cloud of second-hand tobacco smoke and turned to look at me, though a gentle smile was threatening to form across her chapped lips. "Honey, I've seen all manner of monsters in these last twenty years―from being as tiny as a roach to being bigger than a building," she said. "I've seen more horrors than any woman my age should have the burden of taking on. You've got a sweet face and a helpful feeling about you. It's aliens like you that encouraged me to cut the vorts some slack. We're all in this hellhole together, so you shouldn't be treated or looked at as anything other or less than us."

Any concerns I had about potential long-term ostracization instantly melted away after hearing this woman say these words.

Minutes later, we arrived at one of the town's several housing quarters, a five-story white and grey building, which I was informed used to be offices for the former portside shipping authority. Sabrine led me up a flight of rusty metal stairs that spiralled up alongside the building before coming up to the fourth floor, where she opened a heavy metal door and was the first to step inside. I followed right behind her, entering a long and fairly lively communal space with fourteen humans occupying it, either sitting around dilapidated furniture or standing by the windows.

All appeared to be taking part in pleasantries with each other until Sabrine entered the frame. Although she commanded great attention by her entrance alone, she banged her clipboard on the metal door demandingly anyway as if she needed to, and all eyes were definitely on her now at that point. "All right, listen up everybody," she announced with a stern and loud voice. "We've got a new friend in town and she needs a place to stay."

Sabrine moved aside and presented me to the commune, arms out and all, and slack-jawed stares from all the tenants had predictably met my gaze. "This here is Krystal," Sabrine introduced. "She's a blue magic fox person from another dimension. I don't what y'all givin' her a hard time because she is the way she is, you just gotta make her feel welcome like you do all wayward souls who end up here one way or another. Treat her like you would your sister, because that's who she is now as far as you should be concerned."

Sabrine then looked around at the heads of the addled people before us. "Quit your gawking, people, you won't even think twice about her soon enough. Now, one of you show me to one of the spare rooms up on this floor that I know is unoccupied. My clipboards don't lie."

I made a brief but friendly hello to all of my new neighbours as I followed Sabrine and a very confused man to the other side of the repurposed office space, where he showed us a row of enclosed offices that the people had been living in as makeshift apartments.

There were a few offices in here that currently had no occupants and were being used as storage areas for the time being. Thankfully the room I was ushered to was mostly empty save for items like spare luggage cases, which were swiftly removed moments after I stepped inside my provided room.

It was surpassingly accommodating for its size, around two hundred square feet. It had a large rectangular window that had a grand view of the bay, and had a rolled-out mattress lying in the corner with a couple of pillows and fleecy sheets rolled up on top of it as well. While certainly needing a good tidy-up, I felt the whole arrangement was splendid. I began looking around my new confines as Sabrine began to list off key communal rules to me.

"All lights have to be turned off by nine o'clock to save on power. You don't gotta go to sleep, but you can't use the fluorescents unless you truly need to―i.e. emergencies relating to health or what have you," she explained. "You're responsible for taking out your own garbage to the dumpster which is outside by the parking lot, and you have to contribute alongside your fellow housemates in keeping the place clean and presentable for any new arrivals that may come. Seems like some people on this floor may have skimped out a little bit in here," Sabrine noted, looking around my room with an unsurprised frown.

"All of this is so lovely, Sabrine," I said, turning to her and smiling with gratitude. "Thank you for doing this for me."

"Like I said, Honey, we're all in this hellhole together," Sabrine reminded, smiling a little herself. "A little kindness can make it all a bit more bearable―at least that's how find myself coping with it."

"But it's more than true," I reassured, holding a personal stake in that philosophy myself. Sabrine shrugged before motioning out of my new room before she stopped and looked at me again.

"Oh yes, and I almost forgot. We have a working dry cleaner here," she informed. "If you would like to, you could take all that off and set it in the laundry cart just down the hall. Looks like you've been in that same onesie for days; they definitely look like they could use it."

I looked over at the mirrored door of my closet and found that she was sadly truthful. Both my suit and my jacket were dusty and bared their hefty shares of pocks, rips and tears accumulated over lengthy conflicts and enduring the wilderness. And oh, my poor white boots.

Once bright, clean, and helped to make my attire flash with a vibrant and bold contrast, were now caked with a tremendous amount of dust, dried mud, and wrinkled to the point where they seemed to have aged ten years. Even the gaps between their raised heels and their soles were now filled with chunks of hard soil that refused to budge, essentially becoming one with my footwear. I realised then that perhaps there was a good reason why not many in the field wore white in their uniforms.

I could see my ears fold sideways in the mirror as I looked upon my dishevelled appearance. "I suppose my wears could use a good wash," I conceded. "Although, I might need something to change into first."

"We've got some spare clothes in your closet," Sabrine promised. "And if not, we'll snatch some from another room. I can't guarantee they'll look flattering on you. Still, it's better than going naked in this place."

"I agree," I laughed. "Thank you again, Sabrine. Truly."

"No problem, sweetheart."

Sabrine closed the door on the way out shortly thereafter, leaving me alone to get acquainted with my new living space. I could hear her raising her voice at a few of the tenants as she was leaving the building to trod off elsewhere, which in turn made me smile in amusement. I began to shed myself by first slinking off my backpack placing it in the corner by the mattress and taking off my boots by the door.

I had just started removing my jacket when I spotted myself in the mirror again. I paused for a moment before I finished removing the jacket and tossing it onto the mattress as I stepped up closer to the mirror to get a better look at myself. This was the first time I had truly gotten a good look at my reflection since arriving on Earth, and even I could tell I did not belong here.

There were no such conditions or circumstances to be found here that would have led to the fruition of a face and a form such as mine, perhaps not anywhere in this universe if I were being honest. When I looked at this face in this Earth mirror, I actually began to see a sort of alien resemblance that a vortigaunt like Ben possessed. Neither of us belonged in this world, yet we found ourselves here through unfortunate cosmic circumstances.

Still, sometimes this face felt a little alien even to me. As I examined my features, pulling at a couple of my whiskers, I recalled my earliest memories of my reflection when I was just a near-helpless little kit. I used to have a lot more white on my face, my nose was pink, I hadn't grown into my ears yet, and I had no hair atop my head. A few kids that I knew had even mistook me for a cat a time or two. My vulpine features had surfaced now post-adolescence, along with a head of hair, which was not typical of foxes.

Funnily enough, all of the human women I saw today had hair similar to mine, including some of the men. I could at least relate to them in that way. I found that to be queerly comforting as I ruffled my messy hair a little.

I began to remove my silver diadem from my forehead when I sensed the tenants of my floor beginning to congregate towards my room. They were trying to be as quiet as possible, but I could hear all of their thoughts quite clearly in my own. Many thought they had a shared hallucination and were coming to investigate whether or not I was real or if Sabrine was just gaslighting them somehow. Many, through ill-concealed whispers, were pressuring each other to open my door, though no one could muster the courage.

I smiled to myself as I set my emerald-encrusted diadem on my new bed before standing back up and making my way to my door. If I was going to be staying in Red Bay for a little while, I might as well start making some new friends. I just hoped that my internal yearning for sleep would be patient with me for a little while longer before it would be tended to.